The Mizoram pine-sap harvest: a wild economy under threat

The resin tapped from Mizoram’s pine forests — sold to paint and soap factories across India — has long underwritten the state’s winter economy, paid in cash to village tappers.

This season, prices have fallen against synthetic substitutes, and the tapping crews are thinning.

The state is weighing a certification push — ‘wild, sustainably tapped’ — to keep the resin premium and the villages solvent.